‘I still don’t know how I feel about it all,’ Emma Edmondson told me over the phone. I had called to speak about one of her first employers, the artist Stuart Semple. 16 years ago, as a young art student in London, she had taken a job in his studio.
Throughout the noughties, Semple had been a known figure in London’s post-YBA art world. A dropout from a relatively unknown art college, Bretton Hall, he counted Sienna Miller and Debbie Harry among collectors of his early work, made under the pseudonym ‘Nancyboy’. Strong sales reportedly made him a millionaire by 28, the Financial Times called him the ‘Basquiat of the noughties’ and the BBC reported that he was collaborating with Amy Winehouse’s then-manager Raye Cosbert on becoming a popstar, too.
But Edmondson’s job comprised little of what she expected as a star artist’s assistant. According to her, working in Semple’s studio involved maintaining fake Twitter accounts to boost his posts, watching cease-and-desist letters be written and sent to the growing number of people to whom Semple owed money and, on one occasion, dealing with a visit from the bailiffs.
Her wages were often paid late, appearing wordlessly in the form of cash left under her keyboard. When she left the job, after a year, she was owed around £2,000.
Following a protracted correspondence with Semple and his partner Emily Mann – a cycle of promises and excuses – Edmondson contacted a government arbitration service. She received a quick response from Semple: ‘I tried to protect you,’ he wrote in an email, ‘don’t make me put a counterclaim in please! This will get really really messy.’ It’s unclear quite what Semple might have claimed for.
To be a famous artist is to occupy a precarious position. Those at risk of falling have a choice: to float gracefully back to civilian life or to cling to the precipice, not yet ready to let go. In the course of his decades-long descent, Semple opted for the latter option. He ran questionable businesses, failing to pay bills and threatening multiple former employees and collaborators.
Various institutions within the art world and charity sector have enabled Semple’s attention-seeking gambits, bolstering his reputation while the list of workers to whom he owed money grew.
From conversations with more than a dozen of his ex-employees and collaborators – a number of whom were speaking on the record about their experiences for the first time – an image of Semple has emerged that is both fascinating and deeply troubling. Most of the people I spoke to were keen to forget their time spent in his orbit. Some opted to speak anonymously, for fear of retribution.
